Generally, in the side vehicle body structures, an upper side of a door opening section is formed by a side rail extending in a front-rear direction of the vehicle in an upper portion of the side vehicle body structure, a downwardly-oriented pillar support section is provided integrally on the side rail, and a pillar extending in a vertical or up-down direction is mounted at its upper end portion to the downwardly-oriented pillar support section. A vertical side of the door opening section is formed by the pillar.
One example of such side vehicle body structures in which the downwardly-oriented pillar support section is provided integrally on the side rail and the pillar is appropriately mounted at its upper end portion to the downwardly-oriented pillar support section is disclosed in Patent Literature 1.
In the side vehicle body structure disclosed in Patent Literature 1, the downwardly-oriented pillar support section is provided integrally on the side rail, namely, the side rail and the pillar support section are formed integrally with each other. More specifically, a plurality of blanks 101 of the side rail and the pillar support section are integrally die-cut from a panel material (base material) 100 of a generally rectangular shape, as shown in FIG. 11.
However, if the blanks 101 of the side rail and the pillar support section are integrally die-cut from the generally rectangular panel material 100, a considerable amount of remainder 102 would be left over on the panel material 100, and thus, it has heretofore been difficult to use the panel material 100 with minimized waste and thereby enhance a yield rate of the panel material 100.